Happy Father's day!!

Hello again!!

We celebrated Father's day yesterday. It's a great opportunity to marvel our dads with a little gift to remind them that we love and cherish them. Of course, attractive for kids as they can be, crafts are not really a main goal in an English class. But if we use them wisely, they can be a good exercise to practice speaking and listening (now and then). You must give them instructions they have to understand (in order to follow them). You can practice a lot of vocabulary related to crafts (materials, tools...). And it's funnier and lighter than other kind of exercises for kids (remember, breaking the routine is a good idea...provided you don't do it too often!!).

These are some examples of the crafts we carried out at school. The first one is a cup (to the best daddy in the world). It consists of two cardboard glasses (you know, coffee glasses, you can get them in any 99-cent shop) painted, decorated (with glitter, cotton, stickers...) and then sticked together. We made two holes in each side with a punch, so we could introduce the wire to make the handles. It was a long process but it wasn't difficult at all and they managed to accomplish almost everything on their own (except sticking both glasses together), which is great, considering they are just 5 and 6 years old.

The second example is a card. It's a little bit more difficult, so I recommend you to try it with older kids. First, you must cut a piece of black card the size of a A4 paper. When it's ready, you fold it to create the two parts of the jacket. If you open it again, you'll see a rectangle the right size for the shirt (made of white paper). You cut the shirt and stick it to the jacket. After that, you close the jacket (you'll have to use some stickers so it keep closed, we used their initials and their dad's) and you fold the two lapels. Finally, you can complete the card with a tie and maybe a handkerchief or a flower (made of silk paper). As an option, you can write and draw something for your dad in the shirt (before you close the jacket, obviously).

We had a lot of fun carrying out both crafts and I'm sure their parents really liked them, so I strongly recommend them to you. Enjoy!!